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My First Foray Into Veterinary Medicine

profanereviewsPosted for Friends to comment on, 4 years ago6 min read

First off, I wouldn't have done much at all had I not joined the BYC community. Almost everything I have learned about chickens, so far, has been from reading articles and interacting on their forums.

A few months ago I saw Henny P doing a weird dry heave thing, but not opening her mouth. I followed her around and watched her, but other than that, she was acting completely normal.

This is what it looked like.


Not knowing much about chickens, I just figured it was because they were all different and had their own little quirks. Then, a week or so after I noticed her odd neck movements, she quit laying and her chest was all puffed out like there was an orange stuffed in there. You can see it in the above video, as I took the video after a few weeks of this behaviour.

I went online and started Googling everything I could about what I had noticed. I narrowed it down to sour crop and possibly egg bound.

From what I read, the egg bound thing was most urgent, so I brought her into the grow/soap/worm room and drew her a warm Epsom salt bath.
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Sorry, but this room is not equipped with a bidet

She spent a day and night in the house, while I massaged her crop, gave her mineral oil, and kept her from eating grass and other unknown substances. She was very calm, and after her bath, I inspected for a bound up egg, but there was none. I then went to the pharmacy and picked up a 150 mg capsule of Fluconazole (Canesten) and opened it up to divide the powder into three portions.

The Pharmasave store brand capsule was $3.90, but they only had one, so I got Gerri to pick some up while she was in town. She went to Walmart, and they charged more than $13 for a generic capsule there. That seems like a lot when you can get the same thing from Canesten for $19 and it comes with other things as well.

Luckily, our pharmacy was able to get some more in within a couple of days, so we were alright.

I then mixed up the powder with probiotic yogourt and some powdered calcium and gave it to Henny P under the tongue with a medicine syringe. She was not very fond of that, but in two days she was better, so I was okay with her discomfort.

After her water balloon crop had gone back to normal, I noticed that she had a ball of impacted hay, grass, or twine in her crop. It was also pendulous, which means it had stretched out and was hanging down too far for her food to get into her gizzard.

There is such a thing as a crop bra, that would have been easier to use, but It seemed like a long time to wait, so I went to the thrift store and bought a few old pairs of hockey socks and some compression socks to try a few ideas of my own.

The hockey socks turned out to be a bit big, but I think a kids pair would have been snug enough. The compression sock was perfect, but it only took her a week to pretty well shred it. It also took her a few days to get used to it, but she was okay after she did.
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I would get the frayed edges sewn up if I had to do it again.

I spent a lot of time each day carrying her around and massaging her crop ball, which paid off when I went out one morning about a month ago and the impaction was gone! I made her a new bra, to keep her crop up above her gizzard, and everything was going great.

Until last week.

I went out in the morning to turn their light on and gather the eggs, and I noticed Henny's chest was puffing up again. I came home from work and gave her another dose of the Fluconazole/yogourt mix, and started back with the massaging. After a few days, it wasn't getting better, and she was back doing the crazy neck movements again. I thought that I was going to have to put her down, but she seemed to be enjoying her life still, so I didn't have the heart to do it.

She was always the first one to the cup when I brought the mealworms and other treats out, but she was spending more and more time with the two new hens in the coop. She slept in the nest boxes, or under them, and was eating and drinking as she normally would, so I figured I would let her keep going.

And going, and going.

Probably two months ago I told Gerri that I didn't think Henny was going to make it through the night. I had resigned myself to the fact that it wasn't smart to take her to the vet(if one would even see her) and spend $150+ to get crop surgery for a hatchery chick that might have a chronic condition. She had been like this for all of her adult life, as we only got a week or two worth of eggs from her before this all started.
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This is her fancy hockey sock turtleneck for autumn walks and cool nights in the run.

Well, I'm happy to say that she made it about two months after my initial diagnosis and sad to say that I found her dead on the coop floor this afternoon. I had been preparing myself for the day I would find her there, but I didn't think it would affect me like this.

I guess it was because I had spent so much time with her while she was ill, that she seemed more like a pet than livestock, but in the end, she was a sick chicken that didn't lay eggs, and I guess that's why I'm not really broken up over it. She was my favourite, and I hope that eventually, I get another girl that loves to get picked up and carried around as she did, but hopefully, it's under healthier circumstances.

Anyhow, sorry for the long post, but it's been a while. I guess I just needed to get some motivation to write.

Chris

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